David Lupher (Puget Sound)
Historians of the early modern European experience of the Americas have frequently noted the newcomers’ perception that the way of life of many American Natives resembled classical historians’ accounts of the cultural practices and even the appearance of the Europeans’ own ancestors before the Roman conquest (Piggott, Rome, Rubiés, Schnapp, Vaughan). Spanish, French, and English intruders thus often saw themselves as latter-day Romans, either “civilizing” or oppressing and exploiting (both paradigms were explored) “primitive” peoples with whom they could and should empathize (Brazeau, Hingley, Lescarbot, Lupher, Melzer, Vaughan, White). But there has been little attempt to detect Native awareness of this potentially unsettling use of the history of Roman imperialism in European colonial discourse. This paper offers some instances of this awareness—and of European reactions to that awareness—in the hope of stimulating the discovery of further examples.
In February 1545, the irate encomendero and notary Jerónimo López sent a letter to the Emperor Charles V complaining of dangerous lessons being taught Nahua youth at the Franciscan Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco (Paso y Troncoso, Lupher 2003). Not only were the friars teaching these youths “the elegance of the Latin language,” but they were also giving them potentially subversive lessons in ancient European history, “how we were subjugated by the Romans and converted from paganism to the faith.”
Nearly a century later (1643), Roger Williams wrote that he was similarly informing the Narragansetts of Rhode Island “that about sixteen hundred yeeres agoe, England and the Inhabitants thereof were like unto themselves,” heady information that made them “greatly affected with a secret hope concerning themselves” (Williams). And there are two tantalizing (and hitherto apparently undetected) hints that three years later, at Nonantum (Cohasset), west of Boston, Massachusett Indians conversing with English visitors were curious about that same ancient history and attempted to learn more about the pagan, barbarous past of their new neighbors (Anon., Bross, Cogley, Lopenzina). This time, however, the Europeans were not eager to oblige, and the question was misunderstood—or intentionally deflected.
Though separated by a century and by very different circumstances, these instances of Natives in New Spain and New England learning about the distant past of their European overlords seem to share a common sequence. In the first phase, this European ancient history was shared with the Natives in order to encourage their progress to “civilization” and Christianity. But this initial proselytizing gambit soon generated discomfort in other European settlers who feared the subversive potential in Natives’ awareness of the “pagan” and “barbarous” past of their would-be civilizers and proselytizers. As was so often the case in the early Americas, these receptions of the Greco-Roman past proved double-edged and highly charged.